Description of the COVID-19 epidemiology in Malaysia.

Introduction: Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, it has spread rapidly across the world and has resulted in recurrent outbreaks. This study aims to describe the COVID-19 epidemiology in terms of COVID-19 cases, deaths, ICU admissions, ventilator requirements, testing, incidence rate, death rate, case fatality rate (CFR) and test positivity rate for each outbreak from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 till endemicity of COVID-19 in 2022 in Malaysia.

Methods: Data was sourced from the GitHub repository and the Ministry of Health's official COVID-19 website.

Clustering of lifestyle risk behaviours and its determinants among school-going adolescents in a middle-income country: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Lifestyle risk behaviours such as smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour and low fruit/vegetable intake have been identified as the major causes of chronic diseases. Such behaviours are usually instigated in adolescence and tend to persist into adulthood. Studies on the clustering of lifestyle risk behaviours among adolescents are scarce, particularly in developing countries.

Validity of self-reported weight and height: a cross-sectional study among Malaysian adolescents.

Background: Self-reported weight and height are commonly used in lieu of direct measurements of weight and height in large epidemiological surveys due to inevitable constraints such as budget and human resource. However, the validity of self-reported weight and height, particularly among adolescents, needs to be verified as misreporting could lead to misclassification of body mass index and therefore overestimation or underestimation of the burden of BMI-related diseases. The objective of this study was to determine the validity of self-reported weight and height among Malaysian secondary school children.

Association of BMI with risk of CVD mortality and all-cause mortality.

Objective: To determine the relationship between BMI and risk of CVD mortality and all-cause mortality among Malaysian adults.

Design: Population-based, retrospective cohort study. Participants were followed up for 5 years from 2006 to 2010.

Heaviness of smoking index, number of cigarettes smoked and the Fagerstrom test for nicotine dependence among adult male Malaysians.

Two methods of identifying smokers with high nicotine dependence, the heaviness of smoking index (HSI) and number of cigarettes per day (CPD) were compared with the Fagerstrom test for nicotine dependence (FTND). The HSI, CPD and the FTND were administered to 316 adult Malaysian male, daily smokers aged between 25-64 years old in the Malaysian NCD Surveillance-1 Survey using a two-stage stratified random sampling of enumeration blocks and living quarters, via an interview based on a validated questionnaire. The cut-off point for classification of high nicotine dependence on the HSI was a score of four or higher, and for the heavy smoking category, smoking more than 20 cigarettes per day.